Our skewed immigration policy
You would think that an archipelago of 7,1000 islands, stretching 1,100 miles north to south, would have a professional career immigration service to protect the country’s national security and defend its sovereignty.You would expect that a country with a coastline twice as long as that of the United States’, whose shores are extremely porous and vulnerable to alien intrusion, would be amply protected 24 hours a day by a security umbrella using modern hardware and technology.
And since this is the 21st century, you would also imagine that the country’s immigration and citizenship laws are sufficiently dynamic to cope with the fast-moving global economy, international travel, unchecked migration, borderless crime and global terrorism.
You’d be wrong to think in the positive if you live in the Philippines. Our immigration policy is hopelessly dated. The immigration service creaks. Our principal immigration bill—The Philippine Immigration Act of 1940—is more than 60 years old. Our priorities for protecting our national gate are misplaced.
A self-respecting immigration office—such as the Bureau of Immigration—should be sufficiently manned, funded and equipped for the threats to our national security and sovereignty. This is not the case. The bureau is underfunded, undermanned and lacking in basic resources.
It does not have a single aircraft, not even a hand-me-down helicopter, to patrol the skies, or a decent pursuit boat to chase illegal aliens or drug smugglers. Its motor pool lacks the necessary number of vehicles. The communications system belongs to an earlier age.
The bureau has about 900 regular employees—backed by 300 temporaries—to man the big and growing network of airports, seaports and other ports of entry. It operates on an annual budget of P300 million, 70 percent going to salaries and housekeeping. These are not enough for the demands on the service. The volume of newcomers—tourists, businessmen, students, jobseekers (posing as tourists)—is increasing every day. Out of necessity, the bureau has to pull out temporaries from their desks and designate them as immigration officers.
The immigration bureau has to hone its skills and train officers against global terrorism. Poaching on our waters is rampant. Borderless crimes that have washed on our shores include gunrunning, drug trafficking and human smuggling.
We were stunned to learn that citizens from 132 countries could enter the Philippines without a visa. That’s opening the national door to the world. Do we have reciprocity agreements with these states? Despite this generosity, aliens have been known to gatecrash on our shores anytime of the day because we don’t have the resources to protect our coasts.
Visa-free aliens may stay for 21 days, with the option to stretch their stay by formally requesting the bureau for extension. In a given month, nine percent of the newcomers overstay. This adds up to 15,000 overstaying foreigners. The bureau estimates anywhere from 500,000 to 700,000 aliens are living and working illegally, many running their business or competing for jobs with Filipinos. A considerable number must be engaged in crime and vice. This estimate is very conservative. Illegal immigrants could number from one to 2 million. We have thrown away the keys to the gate in the past 50 years.
A big problem is that the bureau does not have an accurate count of how many aliens have entered the country, how many have left, and how many have stayed and overstayed.
‘No longer our country’
WE had an interesting roundtable with Immigration Commissioner Marcelino Libanan on Tuesday.
The commissioner had just completed his first 100 days in office, so it was a good chance to review the work of the Bureau of Immigration and the history of immigration in the country.
In his first hundred days, Commissioner Libanan, a three-term congressman from Eastern Samar, did well enough to introduce timely reforms and to revive the culture of discipline and professionalism in the ranks.
The bureau took the instructions of President Arroyo to heart, crafted and carried out programs to help promote tourism, investment and education in the country.
It cracked down on the lucrative escort service, protected women from human traffickers, strengthened border control and scored a few significant victories against illegal immigration.
Libanan took his oath with the specter of Administrative Order 175 looking on. A few weeks before his assumption, the President ordered the transfer of the responsibilities of the bureau to the Office of the Justice Secretary, an indictment on the poor work of the immigration agency owing to past and recent records of corruption.
Graft had taken roots because of poor management, low pay, pressures from work, scarcities in resources, opportunities to make money from controversial deportation and citizenship cases and a perception that the legislative and the executive had neglected the immigration service and had not appreciated its work.
The new commissioner persuaded his superior and the chief executive to recall the order and to give him a chance to restore discipline, bring back professionalism, curb and punish graft and tighten control at the national door.
Libanan has a big job ahead, including getting critical support from Congress and Malacañang to develop the immigration bureau into a professional, disciplined and muscular career service that could effectively check illegal immigration.
Failing to do so, the commissioner warned, we will wake up one day and “discover this is no longer our country.”
